The Honor Committee is currently looking at two changes to its constitutional bylaws and general policies that would have a significant impact on the honor system as a whole.
The first of these changes occurred at Sunday’s weekly meeting, during which the Committee passed its new plagiarism and paraphrasing supplement in a 19-0 vote. The supplement will be added to the Committee’s “green book” of policies and procedures. First presented by J.J. Litchford, vice chair for community relations, at the Committee’s Sept. 20 meeting, the proposal has undergone several edits, both by Litchford and Chair David Truetzel.
The adopted version of the supplement states that it is “designed to elaborate on one element of cheating — plagiarism — with a particular emphasis on one kind of potential plagiarism — paraphrasing the ideas or work of another.” The Committee defines plagiarism and paraphrasing, and also provides acceptable and unacceptable examples for each concept.
Litchford, who worked with a number of professional and academic experts on the supplement, said he was pleased that the Committee voted in favor of the changes.
“It represents us being able to identify things that need improvement, and then have a thorough discussion on them to make sure we get every detail right,” Litchford said. “This passing represented everyone compromising really well and making sure we remember the intention of passing [the proposal] is to make it better for students.”
Truetzel agreed, adding that the supplement will clarify the definition of plagiarism for the University community as a whole.
Until its green books can be reprinted, the Committee will soon launch a publicity campaign to alert students to the change and explain the supplement’s contents, Truetzel said.
In addition Sunday to approving the supplement, the Committee also began to discuss a new proposal that would give convicted students the opportunity to appeal to the student body to overturn the ruling of their trials.
The proposal, presented by Graduate Arts & Sciences Representative Alexander Cohen, states that “a convicted student would have the right to have the facts of his case placed before the community and have his conviction overturned if, in the judgment of the community, he should have not [been] convicted.” This appeal will require a convicted student to waive his right to privacy altogether.
Cohen suggested that a one-page report of a case could be released to students. The convicted student would then have to receive 500 signatures from the student body for the case to be overturned.
Cohen said he believes such an appeals process would engage the University community and the Committee in an enhanced discussion, and would also ensure that the Committee’s and jury’s interpretation of trials matches the larger community’s.
“The point is to get debate going and get the community the opportunity to weigh in,” Cohen said.
Darden Representative Leif Glynn agreed with Cohen’s proposal, adding that he thought the Committee should find some sort of procedure to correct the concern “that a 12-person randomly chosen jury does not reflect the community as a whole.”
Other Committee members, though, were more apprehensive about the proposal.
Law School Representative Charlie Harris said although that he likes the idea of inspiring discussion and debate within the community, if the proposal is passed, it “is going to end in disaster.”
Harris is generally concerned that having the whole student body decide the outcome of appeals might turn the process into a “knee-jerk reaction,” rather than a deliberate consideration of the facts. The benefit of having a selected and definitive jury is that “they take it very seriously and it is a rational decision,” he explained.
Vice Chair for Trials Alex Carroll agreed with Harris, adding that the proposal lends itself to student bias against the Committee’s general policies. She expressed concerns that there will be instances of “people just blindly saying I don’t agree with the single sanction,” and signing off for the student’s appeal. A convicted student’s friends, moreover, could sign off on a petition, despite their obvious bias.
Moving forward, Truetzel said the Committee will continue to examine the proposal. He added, though, that the proposal would most likely require a bylaw change if passed.
One additional concern I have is about resources. Students with greater family financial resources, from larger schools, or those with higher profiles on Grounds will be at an extreme advantage over those students without such aids. Thus the basis for guilt or innocence becomes not who has the compelling factual appeal, but who can run the best personal campaign.
The appeal process as it stands (http://www.virginia.edu/honor/bylaws/2008/bylaw032209.html#POSTTRIAL) allows for *unlimited* appeals for new evidence and a single appeal for good cause both of which can be filed on a regular or expedited basis. Appeals are considered very seriously and carefully by a special appeals panel.
Additionally, Washington & Lee, a school that provides for such appeals to the student body, to my understanding does so because their system is adjudicated solely by the various governing bodies on their campus. The U.Va. equivalent would be to have only the Honor Committee members judging each case (a system that was in place several decades ago). The student body at the University opted in a 1980 referendum to give students the right to a jury panel composed of a random selection of students or a mixed panel of students and Honor Committee members. The W&L appeal process is in place to bring students into the process, which we as a student body have decided should be done earlier on by providing rights to random student juries. An appeal to the community is superfluous in this sense.
I do think promoting discussion and debate about the many facets of the Honor System is productive and essential to the maintenance of our student self government, but the numerous pitfalls of enacting such a system at a school of this size are detriments that outweigh any benefits of this proposal.
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Let’s let 500 strangers who have not heard the facts of the case or any of the arguments decide whether a student’s Honor appeal is valid? OK… should we also let 500 uninformed strangers decide whether particular students are guilty and expel them? Should we let 500 uninformed strangers decide grades for classes? If 500 people think Joe Blow deserved to pass Calculus, does he deserve to pass Calc? Why is the Honor Committee even entertaining this?
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A math professor knows better than 500 random students what the correct answers on a calculus exam are. But 500 students may be, and a majority in a referendum certainly is, better able to formulate a community standard of honor than 12 random jurors are.
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Alex you seem to be the only person in favor of this idea. Really negative feedback from the editorial and all comments on it… http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2009/11/24/communal-justice/
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That’s false, Rachel. One other person who commented on the editorial thought my proposal would be an improvement.
And I hope you’re not who I think you are.
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This proposal is nonsensical. Either you have a community that can really rely on the existence of an absolute standard that others will not lie, cheat, or steal, or you do not. As a law student over 30 years ago, I both prosecuted and defended honor cases at a time when final decisions were made by the Honor Committee, not some jury of students. Given the single sanction consequence, some of the accused students obviously regretted the actions they had committed. Most came up with convoluted rationalizations in an attempt to demonstrate their conduct was not otherewise reprehensible (the standard for judging an honor offense at the time). On the one hand, I often sympathized with them. On the other, however, I saw invariably it was they who chose (for whatever reason) to engage in conduct constituting an honor offense. The student body took great pains to publicize beforehand to all students matriculating at UVa that lying, cheating, and stealing would not be tolerated. Persons who preferred to look the other way or engage in such conduct were free to attend another institution of higher learning. There are certainly thousands of other schools out there! To attend Virginia, however, requires merely that one cease their lying, cheating, stealing ways for the duration of their stay at UVa. That the overwhelming number of students bought in to the concept, at least during the three years I spent in Charlottesville, made my life as a student all the better. I self-scheduled exams, wrote checks anywhere for any amount simply by showing my student id, left my possessions wherever convenient about the Law School with the reasonable expectation they would still be there upon my return, and found I could always count on the word of others in any material matter. To my way of thinking this injected tremendous freedom and security into the community atmosphere. I found that refreshing and unique in today’s world where it seems all manner of morals have been compromised to promote individual self-interest and political correctness. For one who has not enjoyed the benefit of residing in such a community, it is difficult to describe how pleasant the experience can be. Perhaps Mr. Cohen should concentrate more on adhering personally to the tenets of the Honor Code and less on worrying about those who chose not to do so. True, it is regrettable that some persons must be excluded from the community for failing to adhere to the standards of the Honor Code (which have been substantially compromised since I graduated). If such persons are not efficiently and permanently excluded, then the remaining community suffers by having to tolerate the offender within their presence. The unique atmosphere of community trust is soon compromised and destroyed. Allowing for reversal of an honor offense by either petition or plebiscite will gut the Honor Code. Let Mr. Cohen attend business school elsewhere. His nonsensical ideas are sure to be accepted at many universities where honor is of little concern.
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At a school where most everyone buys fake, forged identification cards to facilitate being drunk 3 nights a week as a prelude to doing lots of pot and cocaine – it bewilders the rest of us the way you folks hack at each other so relentlessly over this long since past notion of honor at UVA and this silly code and committee. You don’t really think anyone else thinks you’re more honorable because you went to UVA, do you?
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Mr. Christopher,
I am a member of the Honor Committee precisely because I am committed to the ideal of Honor. I’ve attended institutions without it, and I’ve attended this institution for the past three years. As a TA, I have relied on the honor of my students in many matters. I believe that U.Va. students are in general honorable, and that this enriches my experience as a student, a TA, and a member of the community. And I go to some lengths not merely to avoid committing Honor offenses, but to present a positive example of a commitment to Honor.
I agree with you that the standards of the Honor Code have been “substantially compromised” over the past 30 years, and I would like to see them strengthened — especially if I could be more confident that cases are being correctly decided.
But I do not believe that the commitment to honor on Grounds is as strong as it should be, nor that the Committee’s process contributes as much as it should to maintaining that commitment. Therefore, I believe the process needs reform.
I believe that public debate about cases would make the system clearer and more consistent. And I hope that that debate will often result in the affirmation of convictions, and that these affirmations will, in the long run, help remove students who deserve to be removed — and, more importantly, reaffirm the principle underlying Honor: that students who are unwilling to live honorably do not belong here.
Finally, while I welcome whatever substantive input you may have as to the best way to strengthen the Honor system, I must protest your implication that my personal conduct is dishonorable. Please either disavow that implication, or substantiate it.
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This will confirm I have no basis to question your character, only your wild-eyed ideas.
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Thank you, sir.
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Alex Cohen has been one of the most upstanding, honest members of the Honor Committee with whom I have met. After being present at several Honor Committee meetings and subsequent discussions afterwards, it became very apparent that Alex Cohen has taken his position very seriously while trying to make sure the entire community is heard. While you may have an issue with his proposal, I assure you- his honor is intact.
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Thank you, ma’am.
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Mr. Cohen,
While I understand your concern about the secrecy of the Honor committee and its procedures, this solution would destroy the honor system. Those signing the petition will, in all conceivable cases, have gotten more of the story from the defense than the prosecution. I find it likely that most everyone convicted of an honor offense could get 500 signatures, thus effectively nullifying the honor code.
If you are concerned about inconsistency and transparency, there are many better solutions. First, the University could create an independent CIO which serves to monitor honor trials, honor procedures, and the consistency of cases. This CIO could have case monitors who sit in on honor trials. This would allow the monitoring of consistency without opening all trials to the public, which is troubling due to privacy concerns. Alternatively, petitions could be used for granting appeals, though certain procedures would have to be followed. If inconsistency is a problem, a second appeal would reduce the chance of an innocent person being expelled from the University.
I appreciate your efforts to better the problems and inconsistencies there may be in our Honor System. However, your policy naively assumes that students, when presented with a limited case summary, very limited time, and the “pitch” from only the defense, can make a fair decision about the guilt or innocence of the accused.
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What about video taping honor trials and having showings in the chem auditorium? If you get someone big to come and screen the movie (ie, Sabato or Elzinga) there would probably be a big crowd. The speaker could talk about honor surrounding the issues of the trial. He doesn’t have to agree with the outcome, but it’s to discuss…
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Also, fyi, I have MAJOR PROBLEMS with the title of this article. This is not the honor committee seeking referendum. This is the JJ working very closely with honor reps to come up with a proposal and on the other hand, it’s Alex putting an issue to student votes without any apparent support from the committee. How many honor reps support this besides you, Alex? How many don’t support it? How many have not yet commented?
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11 28 2009 Shelburne, Vermont
Taking Mr. Cohen at his word, something to which he is entitled as a member of the enfranchised community of students, I must respectfully submit that he is in error through the best of intentions. He seeks to provide a mechanism to correct errors as they might occur. There is already an appeals process in place, and the introduction of “community” standards is precisely the kind of warm and fuzzy language that can create more unfortunate results than the potential for error inherent in the extant process. I am familiar with legal process and I am only too well aware of its limitations, because it is always administered by human beings. Process is of paramount process and introducing further ambiguity into a procedure can render its use an exercise in futility.
I am an attorney. I read the CD a few times weekly just to monitor developments at the University. The debate over the single sanction has raged since I was first year in 1971, and well before. Periodically, a hot button case triggers a firestorm of protest over the harsh results rendered by the single sanction. However, I recall having signed on my application to the College at the age of seventeen that I would abide by the Honor System. No signature — no valid application.
In other words, the student body at the University is self selecting and bound by an ethos all too rare in this sorry, fallen day and age. It is a system with benefits which surpass any sacrifice required of a participant in such a community.
To make any legal process contingent upon the signatures or vote of 500 “community members” is entirely inconsistent with the essential nature of the Honor System as defined. What does “community members” mean? The very introduction of such ambiguity into the Honor System creates yet another source for dissension and another flash point for a debate over a superfluous and peripheral procedure having nothing to do with the core of the system, which is about trust.
Plagiarism has now come to resemble one very slippery eel with the advent of nigh limitless sources of information through the Internet. Yes, it must be addressed. However, all of these matters can be addressed by analogy or the use of reason.
The CD used to have Mr. Jefferson’s words on the masthead every day. “For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead….” It would be error to degrade the Honor System by distorting the process and procedures.
Howsoever, Draconian the single sanction may seem, the system arose in response to what happened, when a faculty member was shot after having accused a student of cheating.
In a curious way, Mr. Cohen is in a conflict of interest position, because he has stated that he is both a student and a faculty member. Through the best of intentions, he is trying to resolve a perceived problem. His proposal would serve only to exacerbate the problem which he seeks to solve. The Honor System was a remedy for the problems created by the faculty’s transgressions.
This was as perceived by the students. The students also used to shoot out the works on the Rotunda’s clock to avoid early classes, necessitating an iron face on the only armored clock of which I am aware. A faculty member by definition can be in an adversarial or antithetical to the best interests of the students. I have framed the proposition in somewhat extreme terms if only to highlight the dynamic tension between the underlying interests at issue.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew T. Canfield
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Mr. Canfield,
I am also an attorney (not admitted in Virginia, but admitted in my native state). In fact, one reason for my proposal is to address a way in which the Honor process falls short of the standard of justice provided by the criminal and tort processes.
Because Honor operates in secrecy, it is difficult to tell what will be construed as intentional, non-trivial, lying, cheating, or stealing. In fact, since there are no precedents, it is impossible to tell: Even the most experienced Committee members, though their estimates are better educated than mine (which are in turn better than those of many other students), cannot be sure what an I-Panel or trial panel will do next week. And I-Panels and trial panels have a great deal of discretion.
You say we can use analogy. Analogy to what, sir, when almost every case is secret and precedents even from public trials aren’t used?
What I am looking for is a way to create community discussion about the interpretation of the standard of Honor, consistent with the Committee’s commitment to confidentiality. Such discussion would serve a role analogous to that of precedent, without allowing one generation of students to bind its successors. It would ensure that I-Panel members and trial panel members have at least some way of making their decisions consistent. And it would give students better notice of what will — and will not — be considered an Honor offense.
As for the conflict of interest: Much of the teaching and TA-ing at the University is done by students, many of them my constituents. And that work is part of our education, so we are not merely both students and “faculty” at the same time: We are students in our teaching roles, insofar as we are learning to teach. It would violate our right to participate in student self-governance to exclude us from the Committee. Accordingly, there are two seats on the Committee for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. GSAS is also represented on UJC and Student Council.
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11 29 2009 Shelburne, Vermont
Dear Mr. Cohen:
I appreciate your thoughtful response to my comments. However, you are still in error.
The secrecy, which you so abhor, serves an essential purpose. It provides protection for someone, who is found innocent, and provides a fresh start with a relatively clean slate for one who is convicted. During my time at the University, I knew two people convicted of Honor offenses. One person chose to pursue a notorious appeals process and sought publicity. I witnessed what can happen with an appeal to popular sentiment. It triggered a firestorm and a circus. It prevented the person from making a clean break, and moving on with life. The second person transferred elsewhere and got on with life. The only reason why I knew about the second person was because someone spoke out of turn and mentioned the conviction to me. I kept it to myself, believing, then as I do now, that the person deserved a fresh start after having made a mistake. Both people had clearly violated the unspoken but readily understood code.
The element of “secrecy” is a protection for those who are found innocent and guilty. Your concept of a petition to the community is inapposite to the principle of trust upon which the Honor System is based. Your concern with changing standards and binding precedent is also somewhat unfounded. I have been told that there was a time when a student was tried for having passed a bad check in Alaska. Eventually the application of jurisdiction was limited to Albemarle County. The system has transformed over time.
Part of the distinction between our respective positions is that I matriculated as an undergraduate and you appear to have matriculated as a graduate student. Based upon my observations, there is a profound qualitative difference between the two experiences. Many of my friends were undergraduates elsewhere and matriculated as graduate students. My intention is not to denigrate your motives, but rather to remind you that most people matriculate as undergraduates knowing full well that there are certain things that are just not done – lying, cheating or stealing. Their acquiescence to the “uncertainty” which you perceive is on the front end. If it were so severe a problem as you seem to think it is, then applications would drop off, and attendance would decline. That does not appear to be the case.
My time at the University was a genuinely transformative experience. I will add that the correct form of address between students and faculty was the archaic Mr., Miss, (now Ms. – I have daughters) or Mrs. This was considered proper form, because Mr. Jefferson believed that the students and faculty were engaged in a process of mutual education. He also did not believe in the awarding of academic degrees – hence First Year, Second Year et seq. I understand your interest in the quality of the educational experience. You are to be commended for your concerns as a teacher. However, you are examining the situation from the perspective of a licensed professional man. The system arose in response to a very real need, and it still serves its purpose. Its origins were in the College of Arts and Sciences. There was not a Business School or a Law School in 1842.
However, you seem to be far more concerned with drawing attention to the perceived flaws in the Honor System and its procedures, and would remedy those same problems by resorting to methods, which would destroy the confidentiality implicit in the process. Furthermore, the idea of petitions such as you propose could result in reducing matters of the utmost gravity to something worthy of Mr. Springer or the WWF. That is clearly not your intention. However, that could be the unfortunate result if sufficiently unscrupulous people took it in mind to render the Honor System a complete mockery.
The Honor System is there in its current form to protect the confidential nature of the information. It is far more similar to the common law than to the civil code system, which you seem to espouse. The common law is far more flexible than civil codes. Petitions such as you propose adding to the process would eventually be the mechanism for destroying the Honor System by destroying the underlying principle of confidentiality. I do not believe that you have given sufficient consideration to this salient fact: the participants in the academical village are already there by mutual assent to the Honor System. They consent when they apply and choose to matriculate. Your proposal for appeal by petition would serve only to destroy the flexibility and invalidate the inherent mutual assent already present in the Honor System. I do not believe that such is your intention, but that would be the inevitable result.
Plagiarism is a problem whether intentional or unintentional. It must be addressed, because technology has altered the landscape, and the topography is that of unfamiliar ground.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew T. Canfield, B.A. History, 1976
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Dear Mr. Canfield:
I appreciate your willingness to engage in a serious discussion of the issue.
My proposal is very much in the spirit of the common law. The common law develops by the deciding of cases, the publishing of the reasons for the decisions, and the subjection of these written opinions to review in higher courts as well as to more informal professional and public scrutiny; the law becomes more specific over the years as precedents build up. Under my proposal, the reasons for decisions would be made public, and the community would act as the higher court reviewing them; the decisions of the community would have some standing as precedent during that student generation’s tenure. The system as currently organized does not state the reasons for its decisions, does not subject those decisions to formal or informal review, and does not develop specificity through precedent.
I agree that there is value in confidentiality, and I thank you for making the case for it better than I have thus far heard it. To the extent that we can open the reasons for decisions to scrutiny while protecting the identities of those involved, I can see that it might be better to do so than to reveal the identities. Certainly the identity of an accused or convicted student is not the information I think it’s essential to publish: the facts necessary to understand the disputed issues and have a sense of what kinds of cases are being prosecuted are.
I’m familiar with the University traditions you mention. I used that Mr./Ms. convention in my first semester as a TA, and when that did not go over well, I switched to mutual use of first names. That said, the fact is there are now multiple undergraduate, graduate and mixed schools at the University; all of us are bound by Honor, and the Committee is responsible to all of us, not only undergraduates in the College. As I point out when I explain the system to fellow TAs, if we lie to our students, they can report us to Honor too. And that’s a good thing.
Like everyone else, I assented to the Honor System. The Honor System consists of three main aspects:
First and foremost is the commitment not to lie, cheat or steal, and to treat other students as trustworthy. I strongly support this, and I live by it.
Second is the principle that the system should be student run. I am myself a student, and I participate in running it. I think a great deal of the system’s moral authority and educative power comes from the fact that it is student run.
Third is the particular set of institutions and procedures that happen to enforce the first principle and embody the second at any given time. This part of the system has changed from time to time throughout the years, in keeping with Mr. Jefferson’s view that political institutions ought to be changed from time to time, and with the Honor System’s commitment to reflecting the views of each current student generation. I believe that certain aspects of our present procedures do not serve their purpose as well as they should. I therefore wish to improve them.
Respectfully,
Alexander R. Cohen
Doctoral student in philosophy
Honor Committee member from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
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12 01 2009 Shelburne, Vermont
Dear Mr. Cohen:
I can appreciate why you would want to make the Honor System more responsive to community standards or norms. You will of course be familiar with the idea of norms from jurisprudence. Legislation is most effective if it reflects an established norm as opposed to trying to establish a new positive norm. If that new positive norm is ignored, then it breeds disrespect and/or contempt for the law and the legitimacy of the judiciary. Witness the disaster wrought by Prohibition in the 1930s.
Along a similar vein the proposal to publish the precise reasons could actually inhibit the adjustment process or mechanism, which you seek to institutionalize through the petition process as proposed. Furthermore, the adjustment process is already there by implication, because of the turnover of the student bodies in the respective schools and colleges comprising the University. By its very nature a student organization changes over time. There is almost always a residual or baseline institutional ethos in any institution in much the same way that societies and organizations tend to perpetuate themselves. The ethos of the Honor System is implicit with a self selecting population, which pledges not to tolerate lying, cheating or stealing.
That is a basic lesson from anthropology. The Chinese Empire is a good example. Whether or not the names of the ruling parties have changed, there is still the mandate of heaven, which is conferred after the fact upon a dynasty that feed, clothes and houses the people. That is how the dynasty attains legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
Along similar lines, the single sanction has always been perceived with ambivalence. However, once there has been a transgression of the trust implicit to being a member of the University community, then what alternative is there to expulsion? The idea of a petition to the community sets up a fast ride on the slippery slope. The bright line standard of the single sanction is a harsh one indeed, but it is practicable, because of the continual turnover.
I understand the idea of precedent as it applies to the common law, and how you would want to see offending conduct better defined or explained. Certainly, plagiarism is a very thorny problem wrought upon us by previously inconceivable electromagnetic storage capacity. As an attorney I have been known to plagiarize some of my old forms, and documents.
It does make one think and revisit all manner of considerations.
The examination and exploration of plagiarism is a necessary and substantial undertaking. It will be a challenge to develop something intelligible especially for students, who have grown up performing research on the Internet and citing thereto in school assignments from the time that they were in grade school. The best of good luck to those examining the idea.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew T. Canfield
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Forgive me for mentioning the obvious, but while I admire the intentions and spirit of the Honor Code, the way it completely ignores so much going on around UVa makes it seem rather silly to most people not directly involved in it.
First of all, the University itself is engaged in a very dishonest campaign at a very high level, and lying has been just fine with the Casteen administration since they instituted their new “health” regime back in 1990 modeled on Planned Parenthood’s:
http://www.uvalies.org/
This is what the building of Elson, the Teen Center, and the creation of the Peer “Health” Educators were all about, and it was soon bearing financial fruit with the 309 elective abortions UVA hospital did in house in 1991. First year female students in the dorms are not given, say, pepper spray or self defense courses. They are given flavored anal lube, treated to school sponsored “Sexfest” events, and told that birth control pills (aka, steroids) are good for you. The rest happens rather naturally during the 4 years that follow, albeit covered up.
The plan is basically the same as that which many former Planned Parenthood managers have described in detail after leaving the organization.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaTywSDmls
And what of the widespread purchases of fake ID’s to facilitate breaking the law and drinking underage in Charlottesville bars and restaurants? Is that not dishonest? If you are a male athlete or an attractive female, you usually don’t even need one. Personally, I think the drinking age should always be the same as the minimum age for military service – but really now folks – are you seriously trying to talk yourselves into the idea that students are being completely honest by purchasing fake identification?
Again, I like the idea of the Honor Code, but it is being ignored and even laughed off every day by a majority of the administration (for the sake of politics and profits) as well as the student body to facilitate breaking the law and doing as they please. And that’s not to mention the legions of first and second years (17-19) arriving at frat houses by the busload to drink till blackout 3 nights a week on Rugby Road.
A couple actually went to jail recently in Albemarle County becuase they served some beer to students graduating from high school at their home. But – surprise, surprise – UVa students get away with it on a exponentially higher scale on a regular basis.
A “community of honor?” C’mon guys.. It’s a full tilt party school. By the time a UVa gal knows she’s pregnant, she’s likely looking back on about a dozen nights she can barely remember from drinking. Mr. Casteen has made sure – in a very dishonest way – that they have an “out” if you will – right at the UVa Medical Center. And it’s been this way for just about 20 years.
So, again, forgive me if the obsession with the minutia of honor code committee strikes some of us as bewildering and/or amusing.
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Thanks for your usual unbiased account of the UVA community, Sean!
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no prob.
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12 02 2009 Shelburne, Vermont
Dear Sean and Sandra Dee:
I can understand why you might sneer at the apparently absurdist rant over procedure and a community of trust between students. You also could probably use some perspective. I remember talking to a textbook saleswoman in Randall Hall about the caliber of the books for the courses at the University versus what she was actually selling at other schools. This was in 1975. She told me that it was the difference between highly technical works comic books. It is difficult to gain admission to UVA. Some of the work required to take a degree in the humanities is daunting. I can speak only to History and English. Forget U.S. News, and apply your critical faculties to the University’s place, warts and all, in the big picture.
As for what the students do for fun or in the name of “science”, nobody can seriously state that 17 to 22 year olds are risk adverse. They are by definition irresponsible and willing to try anything. That goes with the territory and the age. From what I have observed, the more intelligent and high spirited, then the crazier their conduct. I had a friend with a 3.8 average who got really loaded one night and yanked 20 parking meters out of the ground and used them to spell “fuck you” in the middle of Mad Bowl. That was illegal, and possibly a violation of something, but what? He did not take them, and he did not damage them. He simply moved them about 75 feet. It was a protest against the onerous fines being levied against the students by the parking and transit staff. What about the fellow or fellows, who deposited a live cow on top of the Rotunda? The question is, did he/they lie about it? Not if the prank was rendered cleverly enough to evade detection or apprehension. The cow had been removed from a farm, had not been converted to other use, and lived. The farmer was justifiably outraged, and there was some sort of crime. As for the drinking and drugs, it is clearly illegal. The complaints from the time of French poet Francois Villon’s student days in Paris could be taken verbatim and pasted into the Daily Progress. And nobody will ever be able to stop college students from doing what they have always done. It is in the nature of the process.
However, that has nothing to do with whether students lie, cheat or steal within their community. If that appears to be a contradiction, then so be it. Life is full of them. I remember the things I did as an undergraduate, and I would not recommend that anyone emulate any of it. I look back and wonder how I am still here to type this post. College students are not very sensible. Consult the meaning of the word “sophomore.” It fits to a faretheewell. Part of the process at the University is socialization, and it can be as appealing and attractive as living in a sausage factory. Most colleges do not have Honor Systems, and pay lip service to such ideas.
The University is readily distinguishable from most “institutions of higher learning” because the educational and socialization process actually includes an ethical system, which seems laughable to most people who have never experienced it first hand. There was an old joke when I started in 1971 that you could leave your books in the hall outside the Newcomb Hall bookstore until Reading Days, and they would still be there three months later. It was quite literally true. That means something to anyone who has ever lived in such a community of trust. It was real, and it made an impression on anyone who experienced it. It is a benchmark for conduct howsoever trivial it may seem taken out of context.
The administration’s policies are readily distinguishable from the personal conduct and beliefs of the students. There has always been a disconnect. The administration knows that it is sitting on top of a cauldron or crucible of brains, hormones, ambition, mischief and illegal conduct. That is in the basic nature of things. Colleges and Universities historically have always been regarded as powderkegs, and justly so. They are as volatile as they are vitally necessary. How do you best reconcile the forces and interests at work? Nobody has ever developed a perfect formula. Mr. Jefferson’s idea was quite good, and is still quite good when compared with most of the deplorable alternatives. Mr. Jefferson’s model was egalitarian and based on trust and candor.
If you think Honor, morals or ethics are irrelevant, then look to the current financial meltdown. It was precipitated by institutions predicated upon limitless greed, deceit and criminal culpability. I am willing to bet that few if any of the offenders had degrees from the University.
In my experience, the people most willing to sneer at the idea of the Honor System were those most inclined to violate its basic precepts. It is a both an aspirational and actual standard by which to measure one’s own conduct, and that actually does make a difference in this world. It is about personal accountability. Care to have a moral compass, anyone?
Yours sincerely,
Andrew T. Canfield
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All words have been written before ergo all writing is plagiarism! James Joyce is the only author in the English language not guilty of this offense because of his original contributions to language as per THE PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN. Irish authors in particular tickle with their grunts and giggles so what will see us out of this pickle? (If you have read Yeats you will get it.) Honor Codes are a nod to an earlier time when people had a sense of self and community and knew how to accept responsibility. I laugh at a university community that still clings to stiff lipped honor codes when you see tuition rise at double the rate of inflation and university staff engage in an unprecedented macroparasitism in their fleecing of students. The upper ranks of any college are no better than the corporate executives or the union management that fleeces the members for jetsetting and steak dinners. And let’s face it. Your average professor would be unemployable outside of academia because there simply is no market for Postmodern Applications of Transgender Self Image Models during the Early Mesopotamian Period as Revealed in Outhouse Excavations. Better off in trade school!
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